This is low, even by National Geographic’s standards. There are readers here much better equipped to address the math behind the following intent to mislead, but I’ll get it started…
Even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the scientists say, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
The sun emits 3.846 × 1026 watts, or 3.846 × 1033 ergs/sec.
The concentration of C02 today is 387 ppm by volume, or .038% of total atmosphere – in other words, “a few hundredths of one percent”. (Here’s a convenient graph.)
Have at ‘er.
Facts mean nothing.
It’s a feeling.
My first question to this clown would be “define “normal””. Co2 levels have varied significantly over the eons. There is no “normal”.
The math he employs is the same that Obama uses when he makes one hundred million in savings after ninety days of study from a multitrillion dollar budget out to be a significant thing.
I’m waiting for NG to call and ask why I didn’t renew my subscription after so many years…
As I understand it, CO2 is very effective at absorbing a very narrow band of the spectrum, so effective that it already absorbs nearly everything in that spectrum band (it has negligible effect on other wavelengths). This means that increasing the CO2 concentrations by 50 percent will have no increase in absorbed light, and hence no increase in the greenhouse effect.
“I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
I think the failure of the CO2 warming models to predict the last decade of cooling should also put things in perspective.
If they didn’t show pitures of nekid wimin I woulda cancelled long ago;)
That shiny, glossy yellow thing ? Sorta like a thick magazine only more uniform and quite solid ? They are good – for blocking and shimming things up in the garage.
It’s not about the ‘atmosphere’ it’s about taxing the shit out of the rich and wasting it on the alleged more deserving poor. We do that with our Indians here and now in Canada and look where it gets them and us.
We must stay as on top of the money around this carbon issue as we do around the science. Remember … it’s not about the science or the climate or any of that shit … It’s about getting rid of middle classes and the too much freedom enjoyed by some of the people of the world. There are those who just can’t stand it.
Used to be credible that magazine, not anymore! Why do they not realize that lying is not good, I cancelled my subscription the first time I saw a lie portrayed as truth, are they that stupid in Washington, should have known? We teach our children not to lie, starting to look like a lost cause for getting ahead in this Obozo world.
From what I am led to understand CO2 levels lag behind temperature levels by approximately 800 years. Gee anyone care to guess what happened 800 years ago?
Human contributed Co2 is what, 5% of nature’s contribution and it has a trivial effect on climate while the sun’s few hundredths of a percent is definitely related to the difference between absolute zero and the temperature at 100% of solar output (whatever that this). That would be, assuming a linear relationship, about 3 degrees C. per each percent off “normal”. Giving the Warmers the extreme benefit of the doubt that there are no other factors at play than CO2, a doubling of such could yield a 1 degree increase in global temperature. We are talking about the climate effects of the recent (solar) cooling being equivalent to or much greater than the effects of the cessation of all of humanity on the climate even giving the warmers the benefit of the doubt.
Less solar activity leads to less solar wind allowing more cosmic rays to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere leading to more cloud cover formation (nucleus) leading to cooler temperatures – shade.
The last major low sun activity period a few centuries ago, called the Maunder Minimum, resulted in The Little Ice Age – a brutal time for mankind. A good time for The Hudson Bay Company to be selling beaver pelts.
Low solar activity 15,000 years ago was probably one of the factors that lead to Canada being under a couple of kilometers of ice.(yes kilometers !!) Not good.
A few years ago, some predicted the sun’s activity was headed for a low ebb. They are right.
They also predicted the earth would cool. They are right.
They also predicted that this cooling effect would easily override any minuscule, man made CO2 global warming. They are right.
The National Geographic is wrong.
The United Nations IPCC computer predictions are worth squat.
The hockey stick is broken.
James Hansen is panicking – calling for jail time. So is Suzuki.
Al Gore has made a hundred $Million on AGW so far. On paper, that is. When the house of cards falls, it will be the second financial melt down in recent times.
John Cross is MIA. Hypothermia ?
“I Was Told There’d Be No Math”
Bamboozling is one of the swindler’s favorite tricks.
You wonder if people even realize anymore that all the plant life on earth can’t breath or conduct photosynthesis without carbon dioxide.
First Thing is the change from 280 ppm to 387 ppm is 38% increase not 50-60% as claimed by a Solar Scientist who was a promoter of the Solar Driven Climate Theory that had been in place since the discovery of the Milankovich cycles and attribution of this phenomena to the cause of the Ice Ages before jumping on the “OMG the sky is on fire” bandwagon.
This quote is Attributed to the Solar Scientist Mike Lockwood.
A Good read was his 1999 – Letters to Nature Paper
A doubling of the Sun’s coronal magnetic field during the past 100 years
http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/1999/170_Lockwoodetal_nature.pdf
“Recent studies have linked changes in solar activity and aa with terrestrial climate
change. The variation found here stresses the importance of understanding the connections between the Sun’s output and its magnetic field and between terrestrial global cloud cover, cosmic ray fluxes and the heliospheric field.”
That was before he found religion!
People have not studied science in school for years, Rod. If you ask a Grade 12 student to name five gases they gasp and look at you like you are a crazy old fool. Most people don’t know Carbon Dioxide from Carbon Monoxide. Our young people are wasting twelve, productive, free time years by attending indoctrination centres that bore them to inertia and result in self hatred and drugs. Unfortunately, most parents attended the same type centres so the parents do not bring the indoctrinators up on the carpet to explain why their students cannot read with comprehension, do math without a calculator or name five gases.
I am a Science Teacher at a High School and for a typical class of 15 yr olds, the vast majority are NOT interested in Science. Science teachers try to liven learning up with “interesting” experiments and hands on work and very little copying. The sad truth is that few SEE a need to learn science and the principles behind our civilization. You meet former pupils some years later and ask them about science and they confess that they don’t use it, can’t remember any of it. Some, a very few, retain interest and curiosity. Those are the ones who look at figures and say, “That is not right”.
I think we should raise the concentration of CO2 at least 25 times what it is now.
That way we can reconstitute dinosaurs so they would feel at home.
Once the reconstituted Tyrannosaurus Rex begins feeding on the global warming dinosaurs the problem of Anthopogenic Global Warming will disappear with a burp.
Problem solved, and the rest of us will learn to run faster from the AGW mob.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
This is a bit old, but something I just came across lately.
Remember all those ‘Green Jobs’ that were coming down the pike to save the ecomomy?
They’re here!
Painting Lawns Green
[Quote]Al Gore has made a hundred $Million on AGW so far. On paper, that is. When the house of cards falls, it will be the second financial melt down in recent times.[/quote] Ron in K
Ron,
You do know that Gore has moved to Florida, the State that protects the assets of Wall Street swindlers. He who always looks after himself first will spend his days golfing with the likes of OJ.. That is unless some survival group finds him!
BTW in ~4.5 billion years the expansion of the universe (reduced solar) and core fusion burn out will unquestionably result in the dead planet earth, an ice ball is in the future. Those that predict an ice age are correct but that event most likely will be a couple of billion years down the road. Those humans that hope to survive must find a “new” planet.
My question is what makes scientists think that the BIG BANG was a non-reoccurring event? And if not could a new solar system appear in our universe tomorrow?
Those that spend all thier time stuck on Stupid may miss the obvious.
I’m not sure what your complaint is, Kate. The math works out just fine. Why would you bother commenting on the topic unless you have a specific refutation of what he said?
And what in the world do you mean by “low, even by National Geographic’s standards”? You’re not seriously trashing one of the largest scientific and educational foundations in the world, are you? If so, what would you suggest as an alternative for science education? The bible?
The sun’s heat is down by a few hundreth’s of a percent the guy says. Sound small, but is actually a huge number if factored against the 3.846 x 10 to the 26th power watts per second.
“My question is what makes scientists think that the BIG BANG was a non-reoccurring event? And if not could a new solar system appear in our universe tomorrow?”
????
Either you have no idea what the Big Bang theory really states, or you’re REALLY bad at expressing your ideas. There are so many thins wrong with that one sentence that I don’t even know where to start.
National Geographic. Bunch of COMMIES!
Gotta love these lines from the article:
“In general, recent research has been building a case that the sun has a slightly bigger influence on Earth’s climate than most theories have predicted.” Gee, try the obvious, like, no sun, earth’s “climate” equals frozen lump of rock a few Kelvins above absolute zero.
“There are many uncertainties,” Well, yes. Unless of course we want to scare the c#@p out of a scientifically illiterate public and use that to fleece them in which case the oceans WILL rise twenty feet blah, blah, blah.
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Well as pointed out above, what exactly is “normal”? And an additional 50 to 60% of trivial is still trivial. Whereas a few hundredths of one percent of an enormous effect is significant.
It reinforces “Ravaging Science Redux” by Yaskell-Rava, a great paper about science, media and politics.
Link to mentioned article
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/scare_by_ravaging_science_redux.html
Unfortunately the people who believe this stuff will also not be able to follow the graph. “Factor of 10? … 0.0164% by mass of the total atmosphere? My head hurts. Pass me a Kool Aid.”
which means we should build glass houses with CO2 insulation layers of 0.522 mm and live comfortably as they heat up over the next 100 years. try that as a dedicated green experiment.
I am thinking that the larger, bolder, more egregious and ridiculous the lies become, the better.
A lie that even a grade 2 pupil in our public “education” system can see through seems about right.
Since our “I-flunked-out-of-math-and-science” “professional” journalists can’t seem to figure it out, let’s give the grade 2 pupils a turn.
Meanwhile, we can feed our “professional” journalists even more over-the-top lies that they will dutifully publish, eventually discrediting the whole scam.
For any “professional” journalists out there itching for some remedial science education, here’s a word for the day: “isotope”. Extra marks earned if you can correctly use the word in a sentence that also contains phrases such as “dissolved”, “sea water”, “carbon”, “naturally occuring”. Have at it.
Our atmosphere contains 730 billion tons of carbon as CO2. Each year about 120 billion tonnes of carbon are cycled via plants on land and 90billion tonnes via oceans. Human emissions account for about seven billion to 10billion tonnes, or less than 5 per cent, of the annual CO2 flux.
So 5% of the 0.038% CO2 of the atmosphere is “our fault”
Maybe Alex can do that math for us, if he’s not to busy reading some Believer Warmonger propaganda.
And don’t forget, if its getting warmer, where is all the heat going – not to the oceans, they are cooling.
Buy long underwear . . . we are all gonna need it.
Here are the numbers I worked out …
These two numbers are taken from wikipedia.
Output: 3.846 * 10^26 Watts
Avg Distance to Sun: 1.496 * 10^11 m
Area = (4 / 3) * pi * R^2
Area = 1.333 * 3.142 * (1.496 * 10^11 m)^2
Area = 9.376 * 10^22 m^2
So, the Earth, which is at an approximate distance of 1.496 * 10^11 m from the sun, the expected solar power density would be …
Power Density = Output / Area
Power Density = (3.846 * 10^26 W) / (9.376 * 10^22 m^2)
Power Density = 4100 W / m^2
Since the calculated power density does not take into account latitude, it represents a peak, or a maximum.
Most figures I see for solar power say assume 100 W / sq ft. Since there are about 10.7 sq ft per sq metre, this number becomes about 1070 W / m^2.
What happens to the other 3100 Watts / m^2? Some will be lost due to reflection/deflection. Some will be lost due to atmospheric absorption. I don’t know how much. However, one can calculate how much less one will get at any point due to latitude. It is complicated slightly by the tilt of the Earth.
Ignoring the tilt of the Earth for now, if we focus on the angle between the ground and the incoming sunlight, basic trigonometry yields
Power Density = Peak Power Density * sin (angle between sunlight and ground)
So, you have your peak when the two are perpendicular, and minimum (0) when they are parallel.
Now I have totally forgotten where I was going with this. I just like playing with numbers way too much sometimes.
Speaking of wacky environmentalist mathematics, there’s an interesting item over on Aussie Tim Blair’s blog:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/thirteen_bucks/
“But the reason we went ahead with it is that people have limited attention spans, and they need to know something is interesting before they invest time in it – and great imagery is a good way to show that.” Climate Change in Pictures. http://tinyurl.com/c2b86o You see — pictures they understand.
from Tom Nelson . .
An Independent Analysis of Global Warming
By Heinz Lycklama, PhD in Nuclear Physics
What conclusions can we draw from the analysis?
As the result of my reading and analysis, the major conclusions that I draw from my analysis of the issue are as follows:
1. The extent of the GW phenomena does not appear to be as great as has been presented to the public by the IPCC and the popular media.
2. The number of dissenting climate scientists is greater, by at least an order of magnitude, than the number of climate scientists who have contributed to the IPCC report. The number of dissenters is far too large to ignore.
3. The IPCC seems to have focused on the last 25 to 30 years during which a GW cycle has been observed. IPCC appears to have based its predictions of increased GW for the next century on the continuation of the recent GW trend, and ignoring prior trends in global temperatures, both warming and cooling.
4. Many climate scientists have determined that we are now entering a 25 to 30 year GC period, and not a period of GW.
5. The science behind GW is not well understood and is far from settled.
6. The economic and people costs of any proposed GW solution are not well researched or understood.
7. GW appears to be largely due to natural causes, with possibly minor contributions from man-made causes.
8. Technical contributions from hundreds of climate scientists outside of the IPCC have not been adequately considered by the IPCC in determining the extent or causes of GW.
9. Any extensive and costly action to control GW is premature because of significantly different opinions offered by different groups of climate scientists.
10. Deception, the unbalanced use of scientific data, and exaggeration by certain policy makers and politicians have damaged the credibility of the good work done by IPCC scientists.
11. Climate scientists need to regroup and be more inclusive of research done by climate scientists with opposing viewpoints in order to develop a true scientific consensus on the extent and cause(s) of GW.
You can’t compare the total output of the sun versus the increase in CO2. It may be slightly more meaningful to measure the change in two things that “might” effect the temperature on the planet.
CO2 has increased from 315ppm to 385ppm between 1959 and 2008. (Mauna Loa Observatory (NOAA / ESRL))
Solar Sunspot activity has decreased from 145 to 2.4 between 1959 and 2008. (YEARLY MEAN AMERICAN SUNSPOT NUMBERS).
Doing the math, CO2 has increased 22% over the last 50 years and Sunspot activity has decreased by a factor of 60!
Links:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov
Not only that, but world-wide pirate attacks have gone up by a factor of 150! Clearly pirates are the cause of warming.
Wow — that’s embarrassing. Hopefully someone will be writing a letter to National Geographic.
The problem with AGW now is not that everyone believes it because a lot of people don’t believe but they still think we have to do something about it. This is because the AGW guys have been very good at convincing everyone that we will all be screwed by AGW if it is true. So most people fall into this risk mitigation frenzy of doing something about it just in case. Part of this is also due to anti-AGW scientists not being very good in being organized, developing experiments, and being truly scientific in their repudiations of AGW.
One thing that I have not seen (and this might be out there someplace) are real experiments to model the earth’s upper atmosphere. This could be modeled after the way scientists and engineers experiment with CO2 lasers and IR lasing frequencies and power dynamics. Create a gas chamber that mirrors the pressure, temperature and component gases per unit volume in the Upper Atmosphere region in question. Introduce CO2 at the pressure gradient of the next atmospheric level (vary this). Keep everythig constant. Slap some rays on it (I don’t know but maybe the earth radiates EM like a black box – then simulate this). How much is absorbed (at the few specific IR frequencies that CO2 will absorb IR) and much is then re-radiated by the CO2? How much CO2 will enter the atmosphere in question without bumping out other molecules like methane and H20 or before reaching a steady state? Realizing that increased pressure of CO2 causes more elastic collisions between CO2 molecules which does change their molecular quantum levels (and therefore their ability to absorb IR at those few IR frequencies because they are already in that quantum state from elastic collisions), then what does the real IR absorption and re-emmision profiles look like as a function of pressure? Does it affect the temperature of the atmosphere in question? Does it look like a hockey stick or does it look more like an exponential?
etc. etc. etc.
If you want perspective:
“Total solar output is now measured to vary (over the last three 11-year sunspot cycles) by approximately 0.1% or about 1.3 W/m² peak-to-trough during the 11 year sunspot cycle. The amount of solar radiation received at the outer surface of Earth’s atmosphere averages 1,366 watts per square meter (W/m²).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
PresentCO2 forcing is about 1.66 W/m2
Concerning my previous rant. I meant logarithmic instead of exponential. Sorry.
Sparky,
I don’t think your analysis takes into account that only half the Earth is facing the Sun at at time.
Alex;If CO2 is causing global warming as stated by Suzuki and friends and we take their advice then a class action should be launched by the farmers that had their crops frozen in 2004.I lost a quarter million dollars!Words should have consequences if they are wrong.
I said sprocket, not socket!
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
180 years of CO2 stuff, the graphs are a quick over view.
Comment from WUWT
A number of things appear clear:
1) The current level of CO2 has been exceded a couple of times during the last two centuries – and don’t forget these are direct measurements, not derived values – without triggering temperature runaway, and also ,of course, without the help of 21st century levels of emissions
2) The variations in levels over quite short periods of time show the concept of “normal” a bit difficult to grasp, and of course, comparison with a mean is not particularly helpful since choice of start and end times can be used to give you almost any answer you want.
3) The comparison between CO2 levels and temperatures shows yet again that CO2 levels lag temperature by 5 or 6 years:
My bad, I see what you were calculating now.
You wonder if people even realize anymore that all the plant life on earth can’t breath or conduct photosynthesis without carbon dioxide.
Posted by: Rod.
Exactly Rod, and if we are truely under AGW with carbon dioxide increases it would be logical that Earth’s Plant Life would flourish, thereby; making Earth Green.
So what’s the problem, eh ?
Now, as far as Alex goes, either you ain’t been keeping up with current affairs, or have you not noticed for the past 12 years the Planet is actually cooling. How on Earth are you Warmers gona explain/spin that one ?
,
When the facts don’t back you up just lie and tap dance alot.
Alex:
The point is to use % when comparing two things that are both not directly related and on hundreds of orders of magnitude different in scale just to attempt to prove a point is misleading.
For example, Joe losses his job and the national GDP shrinks. Joe’s loss of income is 55% (EI) while the national GDP shrinkage is 1%. It would be misleading to state that Joe’s eating of cat food had nothing to do with the national GDP loss becuase his income was slashed by 55% while GDP was just 1%. Unless of course one considers that perhaps small % change in large systems can have drastic effects on smaller ones.
The sun is the #1 energy input in to the climate, by any measure the other inputs are pretty small in comparison. CO2e is #3 insulation behind Air and Water. Also there are effects of the sun’s level not only on the energy output but also the reflectivity of the earth (clouds).
The actions of the IPCC and others is more akin to teaching science from the bible then you would think, the book is different but the ignorance is the same.
I’m more worried about the sun burning out in 5 billion years. Then it will just be a red giant.
We should start making money off this fact now so we can afford to move to another planet with the other elites of society, like Gore, when this planet becomes uninhabitable. Only the richest will survive, and there’s a lot of money to be made by propagating fear! I’m an engineer, too, so I can throw numbers around to sound more convincing.
Just as egregious, if you read the Nat Geo article, Lockwood is described in his own words as engaging in “pre-emptive denial”. In short, he’s confessing he’s wrong before he opens his mouth; freely translated, Lockwood is saying “I’m a liar”. I’m not sure what kind of arithmetic they teach at the U of Southampton, but obviously it’s not up to the task of understanding that a 50% increase of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing.
As for Alex above, tell me that you understand what orders of magnitude are and then we can talk.